Professor Hasan Bakhshi, Director Creative PEC and Josh Siepel, Research Lead, R&D, Innovation and Creative Clusters, Creative PEC
Over the past few weeks, you may have been contacted or seen social media promotion about the Creative UK Access to Finance Survey, which is currently live. The survey is the first major effort to capture new data on creative industries firms’ ability to access finance in seven years. The Creative PEC is calling on creative businesses to complete a questionnaire we have designed with our colleagues at Creative UK and BDRC, which closes on 13 September. In this post we’ll be explaining the survey, why it’s important and why your response will be important.
What is the survey?
The Access to Finance Survey aims to understand how creative businesses and organisations use finance. Whether you are a growing business looking for venture capital or a small company with a business credit card, your views are important. The survey aims to understand what types of finance different companies use, the ways in which companies use finance, and the barriers they face to accessing the finance they need to grow.
The survey is online and anonymous (though you have the option to share your contact details). It only takes a few minutes and your response will help us to better understand the challenges faced by creative industries businesses in accessing and using finance.
Take the survey: https://www.wearecreative.uk/access-to-finance-survey-2024/
Why is access to finance important?
Experience suggests that access to finance is one of the most common factors identified by creative industries businesses as a barrier to growth. It’s striking therefore that access to finance is amongst those areas most poorly served by the evidence base. This evidence gap helps explain why policymakers have been slow to respond to business calls for investment support. To help address this problem, this survey will help to strengthen the evidence base for creative industries.
Why should you respond?
We want the survey to capture the breadth of companies in creative industries – allowing us to produce rigorous evidence that will allow us to look at the challenges accessing finance in different creative sectors as well as across the UK’s nations and regions. But we need responses from all creative sectors and all regions. You can make your voice heard!
What is the Creative PEC’s role?
Creative PEC researchers have contributed to the design of the questionnaire and will be conducting economic analysis on the results. Our results will be published later this year and will be very important in shaping our understanding of how creative businesses use finance and how they can be better served to get the finance they need.
Take the survey: https://www.wearecreative.uk/access-to-finance-survey-2024/
